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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gao seng who wrote (263303)	6/12/2002 12:25:44 PM
From: Martin A. Haas, Jr.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Gao, from a thread follower who enjoys your posts. Below from today's Wall Street Journal about the Democrats that have wonderful ideas on how to spend our tax dollars: REVIEW & OUTLOOK Bush Threatens a Veto Some fights you can't win without real shooting, so we're encouraged to see President Bush -- at long last -- heading for a showdown with the insatiable spenders of Congress. The dispute centers on a supplemental spending bill passed by the Senate last week, which began with a Presidential request for extra funds to fight terrorism. The Senate seized upon this genuine national interest as a chance to demand free rides for a vast herd of pet projects, many of them having nothing to do with terrorism and plenty to do with the November elections. The result, outstripping the more modest version passed by the House, is a Senate "counter-terrorism" bill so stuffed with pork it deserves a prize at the next state fair. PACKED WITH PORK The Senate bill includes funding for the following "anti-terrorism" projects: • Medicaid shortfall payments to Washington, D.C. ($26 million) • Plant genome research ($3 million) • Poultry Newcastle disease ($500,000) • New England fisheries ($11 million) • Election reform grants ($450 million) • Mapping Hawaiian coral reefs ($16 million) • Smithsonian's pickled-animal facility ($2 million) • Hires and pay parity at the SEC ($20 million) That's why all those flag-waving Senators cheered it through with a rousing vote of 71-22. And that's why Mr. Bush has been warning that he wants a supplemental "that doesn't bust the budget" and is threatening a veto -- his first -- if this bill arrives on his desk looking anywhere near as ridiculous as it does waddling into conference. A veto would go far toward upholding the national interest. Congress is congenitally ill-equipped to refrain from group gluttony; once one gang busts the budget, it's an invitation for everyone else on the Hill to pile on. Having pigged out on the farm bill, bulked up on non-military spending generally and held out on major tax cuts, our good Congresspersons are clearly trying to tell us they just can't help themselves. This is especially true in the Senate, where Majority Leader Tom Daschle has been told to stand in the corner by West Virginia's Bob Byrd, aka the Lord of Lard. And there is so much in this supplemental budget bill that begs vetoing. The Senate began by tying the emergency funding the President wanted for actual counter-terrorism, including money for terrorist-tracking forces and the Drug Enforcement Agency, to their pet projects. And so the Senators loaded up the bill with such do-or-die national priorities as $2 million for a new building to warehouse the Smithsonian's collection of pickled animal specimens. The Senate bill also includes funding to report animal-rights violations at puppy-breeding establishments, and support for honey bee research centers to help ensure "the world's food supply." There is $55 million in yet more subsidies for Amtrak -- an outfit run on the principle that the more customers you have, the more money you lose. There's $11 million for New England fisheries and $3 million for drilling wells in New Mexico. There's money for mapping coral reefs off Hawaii, subsidizing roadside farmers' markets and converting low-income housing in Baltimore into student quarters. On and on it goes, until finally we're talking about real money -- for a grand total of $31.5 billion, or $4.4 billion more than the President originally requested. There was only one federal agency on which the Senators did not try to lavish more money than requested by Mr. Bush -- the Department of Defense. We hope Mr. Bush sticks to his guns and vetoes this bill. Congress is looking to see if he can be rolled once again, with an eye beyond this supplemental to the bigger spending battles later this year. While the Senators won't admit it in public, many of them would also like to be rescued from this sleazy and embarrassing spectacle. Mr. Bush would be doing everyone a favor by sending the message that there is an adult in charge. URL for this article: online.wsj.com Regards, Marty